Within the first 30 seconds you are greeted to a slideshow of ugly, choppy CG (we're talking like 10-15 fps here). Bad enough that were I watching it in theaters I would've left. That soon. But tough it out, I said. It will pass, I said. I was wrong. About 50% of the movie is done with this horrible "style," which is just pathetic. What makes it even worse is the jarring juxtaposition between the 2D and the CG. Because, you know, they couldn't just make the background CG and keep it consistent, they had to alternate everything between the two. The hand drawn stuff is mediocre to begin with, but it looks positively Llouvre worthy compared to the CG. Had this been labeled a 3-man fan project I would've believed it.
That's just the visual. The "plot" doesn't exist, as the time skips seem to be randomly chosen, and for something that was described as a "retelling" (or was that Evangelion?), there is no coherence for anyone who is not already deeply familiar with the source material. This just doesn't work with Berserk, where there are so many plot details. One minute Griffith is watching his rebel army fight, the next thing you know he's
the #1 knight at the princess's party, having gone from a suspicious guy to Guts's best friend
.
There are no impressive moments, nothing cool, no suspense, and they even managed to make Casca look horrible nude. I went from watching the original anime series to reading the manga, and my impression was that the anime did a mediocre job of presenting things (skipping some fairly important plot points, etc), albeit an excellent job of capturing the atmosphere. So I was hoping things would be presented in a more faithful manner this time around, but nah, not even close. This is just a bad attempt at cashing in.
Panty shots in this anime? Who would have guessed? And the long awaited return of Yuuki! And Koizumi is still as mysterious as ever. The preview of the next episode showed boobs, so it should be good.
This was a pretty fun episode! Gennai has freckle moe~ going for her, there wasn't any offensive art like in episode 3, and the plot was nice. Nothing to dislike about this episode, really. Time travel shenanigans are always fun.
OK I lied, there was a 3 second shot of this offensively bad character
What can I say, it's been emotional. It's served as great Sunday afternoon viewing, and watching it marathon fashion speaks to its overall quality, at least for me.
Reading some of the week by week opinions had left me a little skeptical, but then again everyone is a little guilty of dissecting the minutia of an episode when watching a show as it goes to air.I think the direction flows really well, and I don't really get the impression that it's being rushed, despite the frequent jumps in time.
Similarly I feel like the article that Jexhius linked to makes odd criticisms of the show. Just because it's not outright and deliberate about it's setting, thats not to say it doesn't utilize it well. I feel it does a lot to inform the overall feel to the show, which although quite overt it is use, doesn't mean it is wasted. The period itself is used to utilize the proliferation of Jazz, which although never part of popular music, would feel conspicious in a modern setting. Conversely the Christian argument I find outright bizarre, having been brought up in such an environment throughout my own school education, and even then it was never really front and centre. That article seems to operate under some strange pre-conceptions.
I came for the music, I stayed for the (melo)drama. Oh, Halcyon days. I'm enjoying it, although having now reached the other side I do find myself wishing I had waited a couple more weeks!
That preview lied to me, that girl wasn't even in this episode... Man this episode was boring. Mostly just Saji whining around Koizumi's friends A and B. NEED MORE YUUKI.
Thank you translator notes, I totally wouldn't have got the joke without you...
In the ages before guns, bows and arrows were used and that was awesome.
So decent episode with a lot of events happening. I'm glad Jil has finally found his resolve though I kinda was expecting everyone else to still question it cause it's not like he has any backing for it.
The death scene was probably needed to give Jil his resolve to begin with, so mixed feelings on plot forced death. The death scene itself was pretty touching at least.
For many a month, mankind has been seeking the answer to this most bewildering of questions left by the sages from Bioware. Now, the answer has finally been revealed:
Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker
(ドラゴンエイジ ブラッドメイジの聖戦 Dragon Age: Blood Mage no Seisen, lit. "Dragon Age: Crusade of the Blood Mages")
ogre splitting in half the morbidly obese elf like a kinder surprise
to the
dragon suicide bombing itself to defeat the big bad
, Dawn of the Seeker is one of the most hilariously awful things I've seen in a long time. The bad CG might look bad enough in still frames but when combined with the truly awful animation and motion blurring, it transcends itself into a new level of bad CG that not even the new Berserk movie could possibly hope to touch. This is something that needs to be seen to be truly appreciated, and that's not even touching on the awful writing or the humorously bad ED songs!
What?!? A season two?
So yeah, other than defeating the ugly CGI monster, nothing gets explained, more mysteries pop up and who cares! Cause there's more to go with more climbing, more action and more mysteries. Hell, there was even a new loli popping up at the end, so that's gotta be good!
As a fan of both romance and Victorian England, this show is right up my alley. I really like its relaxed and refined tone. The central couple have an innocent chemistry about them that is very charming. William's impulsive energy is a good foil for Emma's reserved and self-effacing nature. While they are not very fleshed out yet, the scenes of William at home and Emma's glasses flashback go a long way to making them feel like real people. It's low-key, but not lazy: both the visuals and the dialogue are well edited, and I never felt like there was an unnecessarily prolonged moment. The storyboarding is solid, with interesting and meaningful close-ups, the character designs attractive, and the art direction realizes the setting well. The only visual flaw was a poor CG tracking shot.
The vision of 19th century London this presents is certainly idealized - a forlorn flower girl fruitlessly peddling her wares aside, we're in the untroubled world of the high-class. The relationship between a gentleman and a servant promises to provide some conflict, but initially there's no hint of such. Of course, there's nothing wrong with this kind of historical escapism. Just because it's Victorian England doesn't mean it has to be Dickens.
The gal games or whatever just seem so drab, though I like how he is trying to give them writing that doesn't sound super cheesy and weak. Anyway, I really felt bad for Kaoru
the girl is just playing with him and he doesn't know it and then Sato won't tell him. The girl is so rude, just because he's a fan of anime shouldn't make him weird, he doesn't even seem weird or anything but cool, ugh, all these feelings. At least 2D doesnt have these problems.
I liked the classroom for Sato though
until the breakdown. It made me feel all awkward and embarrassed that I paused for a few minutes when he started having the breakdown in front of everyone and ran off. It wasn't even a high tension environment or that crowded but that to be intense to be confronted infront of a room of unknown people. One of the most memorable so far.
Oh I also hate how funimation didnt translate none of the text at all. It makes sense where they focus on signs or papers seem so odd. Gonzo fail.
You can't have a romance story without misunderstandings. But when there's so little drama, and it's resolved so quickly and straightforwardly, I certainly can't complain. Misunderstandings are only a real narrative problem when people refuse to talk to each other for no good reason.
Cause every sequel needs a new kid.
Decent welcome back episode. They did a good job talking about what has happened without getting too boring. They reintroduced old characters and some new. More unexplained things are happening with on top of unresolved things is going to take some time to actually explain everything.
GKids isn't "anime-community nobodies" apparently. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GKIDS They distributed The Secret of Kells, which was nominated for best animated feature at the 82nd Academy Awards.
Men are wolves apparently. And Koizumi stays overnight at Saji's house because of poorly explained reasons. And they play some tonsil hockey. So are they both in love? No.
They said I could be anything, so I became a shooting star!
Crossbow wielding status mage? Check.
Back up the tower we go. This was a fun episode mostly for all the action within the city which made it lively and pretty entertaining. Sure, there was lots of politics I guess, but it was cool to see old characters help out as our heroes run out of the city.
